Ultimate Thriller Box Set (50 page)

I withdrew a pair of leather gloves from the fanny pack and grabbed a baseball-size rock lying in a flaccid garden adjacent to the patio. When the gloves were on, I shoved the rock through the pane nearest the doorknob. There was a concussive crack, and splinters of glass spilled across the floor inside. Still holding the rock, I listened for the sound of an alarm, but the house remained silent. I dropped the rock and turned the lock.

The warm breath of central heating caressed my face as the doors swung open. I stepped inside, removed the leather gloves, and put them back in the fanny pack. After wiping my fingerprints off the outside doorknob, I squeezed my hands into a pair of latex gloves and pulled the doors closed behind me.

I distrusted the silence. Standing in a sunroom, I noticed the fading light filtering in through long, curved panels of glass. Wicker chairs had been placed somewhat erratically across the brick-patterned linoleum floor, and potted plants lent the room the earthy bouquet of a greenhouse. I moved cautiously across the floor, my footfalls crunching bits of glass. Taking my Glock from the fanny pack, I chambered the first bullet, praying I wouldn’t have to fire the unsilenced weapon in this tranquil neighborhood. Walter and I had been unable to locate black-market silencers.

From the solarium, I proceeded into the kitchen, which was decked out with white appliances on miles of counter space. I examined pictures on the refrigerator of a white-water rafting trip, and of Orson and a woman I’d never seen before, standing arm in arm on the barren summit of a mountain.

To the right, a doorway led into a dining room, complete with china hutch, chandelier, and a mahogany table set with crystal, silver, and china on a white tablecloth.

But I went through the doorway to the left, leaving the kitchen and entering the living room. Orson had impeccable taste. Over the mantel there hung a print of Odilon Redon’s monochromatic Anthony: What Is the Object of All This? The Devil: There is No Object. Incidentally, the subject of the black lithograph looked jarringly similar to the man who’d stopped me for an autograph on my mother’s street. Luther. In the far left corner stood an old Steinway upright piano, and before the gas-log fireplace, a Persian rug spread across the floor, framed by a futon and two burgundy leather chairs. A staircase ascended to my immediate right, and just ahead, at the foot of its steps, loomed the front door.

I walked through the living room, my steps resonating on the hardwood floor. A doorway on the left wall, near the Steinway, opened into a library, and I crossed the threshold into the room of books.

It smelled good in his study, like aged paper and cigars. A lavish desk dominated the center of the room, identical to the one in my office. Even his swivel chair was the same. Sifting through the drawers, I found nothing. Every letter was addressed to Dr. David Parker, and most of the files consisted of research materials on ancient Rome. There weren’t even pictures on the desk — just a computer, a cedar humidor filled with Macanudo Robusto cigars, and a decanter of cognac.

The walls were covered by bookcases. The titles indicated the same specific, academic sort of subject matter as the books I’d seen in his office: Agrarian Society in Rome in the Third Century B.C. Tribunal Policy and Imperial Power Before Caesar. Foreign Relations: Rome, Carthage, and the Punic Wars.

The low shudder of a car engine pulled me to the window. I split the blinds with two fingers and watched a white Lexus sedan turn into Orson’s driveway. I waited, my stomach twisting into knots. If Orson came in through the back door, he’d see the broken glass.

He appeared suddenly, walking swiftly up the sidewalk in an olive suit, briefcase in hand. I stepped back from the blinds, dropped to my knees, and crawled under his desk.

A key slid into the dead bolt, and the front door opened. Orson whistled as he strode inside, and I drew back as far as I could into the darkness under the desk. His footsteps moved through the living room, then into the study. A deafening clump shook the desk and set my heart palpitating. He’d dropped his briefcase on the desktop. As he came around the desk toward the chair, I readied the gun.

A phone rang somewhere in the house. He stopped. I could see his legs now, his pointed black wing tips. I smelled him — clean, cologne-sweet, familiar. The scent of our sweat after a long day was identical. The phone rang again, and he rushed out of the study, mumbling something indecipherable under his breath.

He answered from the kitchen after the third ring. “Hello?…Hi, Arlene…. Yes, of course…. Well, why don’t you, then? We’ll put something on…. No, don’t do that. And just come on in…. All right. Sounds good. See you then.”

He hung up the phone and went back into the living room. For a moment, I thought he was returning to the study, and I raised the gun. But his footsteps died away as he ran up the staircase.

Shaking, I climbed out from under the desk. As the shower cut on upstairs, I squatted down, took the walkie-talkie from the fanny pack, and pressed the talk button.

“Wilma,” I whispered. “Wilma? Over?”

“Over.” Walter’s voice crackled back through the speaker. I lowered the volume. “You’re Wilma. I’m Fred,” he said.

“He’s here,” I whispered. “Upstairs, taking a shower.”

“Did you find —”

“Can’t talk now. Go, Papa.”

“What?”

“Get up here and wait for the next signal.”

I turned off the walkie-talkie and walked into the living room. The staircase was carpeted, so my footsteps fell silently as I ascended to the second floor. Emerging in the center of a dim hallway, I saw there was a bedroom at each end, and a closed door directly ahead, which, because it glowed underneath, I presumed to be the bathroom. Orson’s shoes, his navy-speckled brown socks, black belt, and olive suit trailed right up to the door.

He sang the Beatles’ “All You Need Is Love” in the shower.

I stepped toward the bathroom. Open the door, slip inside, and then stick him with the needle through the shower curtain….

The doorbell rang, and I froze in the hallway, wondering if he’d heard it, too. After five seconds, the shower cut off, and I heard the plop of wet feet on tile and cloth rubbing frantically over skin. I ran down the hallway, then into the bedroom on the right. Because there were clothes strewn all over the floor, I assumed this was his room. To my right, a dormer window overlooked Jennings Road and, beyond it, the snowy Adirondacks. Pillows filled the alcove, and I couldn’t help thinking that Orson must spend a great deal of time reading in that dormer nook.

A roomy walk-in closet opened to my left, and I darted inside as the bathroom door opened. The doorbell rang again, and Orson shouted, “I told you to just come in!” as he rushed down the staircase.

I did not hear him answer the door. Jostling my way between hangers of mothball-stinking suits and stiff sweaters, I finally ducked down in the farthest corner of the dark closet.

After a moment, Orson came back up the stairs and entered his room. I saw him briefly through the hangers — naked, stepping into a pair of boxer shorts and blue jeans, still conjoined on the floor, just as he’d left them. He stood shirtless in front of a full-length mirror, combing his wet hair, grown out now from the crew cut he’d sported in the desert. Grinning at himself, he bared his teeth, mouthing words into the mirror, none of which I could understand. It was the first good look I’d had of my brother, and I drank it in.

Still in marvelous physical condition, his appearance was more civilized and handsome than in the desert. He radiated charisma, and his eyes sparkled.

“Pour yourself a glass of wine!” he yelled. “There’s a pinot noir in the wine rack!”

Orson opened a dresser drawer and perused it for a moment, finally lifting out a gray box cutter. He exposed the razor, a small blade that obtruded no more than an inch from its metal sheath. Fingering the edge with his thumb, he smiled at himself again in the mirror.

“You behave.” He giggled. “You behave tonight.”

“Dave?”

Orson spun around. “Arlene. You scared me.”

Her voice came from the top of the stairs. “Where’s the wine rack?”

“Kitchen counter.” He held the box cutter behind his back. From my angle, I could see it in the mirror as he fidgeted with it, pushing the blade in and out. “Oh, Arlene. Put on some music, will you? Miles Davis, if you don’t mind.”

Retracting the blade, he slipped the box cutter into his back pocket, and continued to primp.

Through the dormer window, the last strands of sunlight receded behind the Adirondacks. It was tempting to hide in that closet for the entire night, cloistered safely behind hangers, between smelly old garments. But I steeled myself, pushed my way through the clothes, and stumbled at last out of his closet.

Their voices rose to the second floor. I heard my brother laugh, and the tinkle of silverware on china. It’d taken me an hour to summon the nerve to walk out of the closet. Thank God they’re still eating. It suddenly occurred to me: The broken glass. Please don’t go into the sunroom.

Since I had his room temporarily to myself, I took the opportunity to check the dresser, the bookshelves, and the closet for the pictures and videos of the desert. I found nothing, however, to substantiate his hobby, not even a journal. In fact, the only item in his bedroom that reflected in a small way Orson’s taste for violence was an enormous William Blake print hanging on the wall across from his bed — The Simoniac Pope, a pen and watercolor hellscape of Pope Nicholas III in a vat of flames, the soles of his feet on fire. I knew this work. It was an illustration of Hell, Canto 19 from Dante’s Divine Comedy. Those who didn’t know him might be perplexed at Orson’s morbid choice of wall decor.

I walked down the hallway and entered the guest room. It was impersonal, filled with ill-matched, eclectic furniture. The closet was empty, as were the two drawers of the bedside table. I doubted if anyone had ever slept in the single bed.

Slinking back into the hallway, I turned and went down several steps. Orson spoke softly in the dining room. Chairs moved, and I heard footsteps heading toward the foyer. I retraced my steps, and when their footsteps continued in my direction, I clawed my way up the staircase, raced back down the hallway, and hid again in his closet.

They entered the room and fell together onto his bed. I heard Orson say, “I like you a lot.”

“I like you, too.”

“Yeah?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t.” Arlene sounded as if she was about thirty, and though her voice was throaty, it retained a sliver of girlish innocence. I knew why Orson liked her. The lamp on his bedside table cut off. They kissed for a while in the darkness, and the intimate slurping reminded me of Friday nights, in high school.

“What would you think about me doing this?” he asked.

“Ooooh.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.” The room fell silent for a moment, excepting the moist sucking murmurs.

“Can you guess what I have in my back pocket?” Orson said finally.

“Mmm. What?”

“You have to guess, silly.”

“Is it round and crinkly?”

“Actually, it’s hard.”

“Mmm.” She shuddered in a good way. I could hear the alcohol thickening up her voice.

“And very sharp.”

“Huh?”

“You told any of your friends about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Does anyone know we’ve been seeing each other?”

“Why does it matter?”

“Just tell me.” I caught a grain of anger in his voice, which I’m sure she didn’t register.

“Only the girls at work.”

Orson sighed.

“I asked you not to tell anyone. You tell them my name?”

“Why?”

“Arlene, did you tell them my name?”

“I don’t remember.” Her voice mellowed. “What do you think about this, sweetie?” A zipper started to descend.

There was sudden movement in the dark. “Don’t you touch me,” he hissed.

The bed squeaked, and I wondered if she’d sat up.

“Turn on the light,” she said. “Turn it on!” The light did not come on.

“Did you tell your girlfriends my name?”

“Why are you acting so weird?”

“Tell me, so I can show you what’s in my pocket.”

“Yes, I told them your —”

“Goddamnit.”

“What?”

“You can go now.”

“Why?”

“Leave.”

“What is wrong with you? I thought — I mean…I like you, and I thought —”

“I had something extraordinarily special planned for us tonight. And you just ruined it. I was going to open you up, Arlene.”

“To what?”

“Get out of my house.”

The bed moved again, the floor creaked, and it sounded as though clothes were being smoothed.

“I can’t believe I — you need help, David.”

“Perhaps.”

“You can go to —”

“I’d advise you to leave while you’re still able.”

She stormed from his bedroom into the hallway, screamed “Fucking freak!” and was sobbing by the time she reached the front door.

25

ORSON sat for a while in the dark after Arlene left. For some reason, I expected him to cry, to come apart in pathetic flinders when no one was around. But this didn’t happen. As my eyes grew accustomed to the dark, I began to make out the shapes in his room — the painting on the wall, the bookshelves, his legs stretched out on the bed. I could see barbs of light through the dormer window, on the black slopes across the valley.

After thirty minutes, I thought he’d fallen asleep, and I began to psych myself up to crawl out of the closet and do what I’d come here to do. But when I started to move, he sat up abruptly. Stiffening, I watched his arms reach down under the bed and lift what appeared to be a shoe box up onto the mattress. Orson slipped out of his loafers and kicked them in opposite directions across the room. One hurtled into the closet and nearly struck me in the head.

I heard a mechanical clicking. He settled back onto the mattress and began speaking in a low, monotonous voice: “It is…seven forty-three P.M. on Friday, November eighth. Arlene came over this evening. I told you about her. That legal assistant from Bristol. It was going to happen tonight. I thought about it all day. All week. But she’d mentioned me — my name, I mean — to some of her coworkers, so that’s the end of that. It was an exercise in self-control. I’d never used a box cutter before, so I’m more than a little disappointed that tonight didn’t work out. If I go much longer without any play, I may resort to doing something careless, like that time in Burlington. But you made the rule never to do that in this town, and it’s an intelligent rule, so don’t fuck things up.” He stopped the Dictaphone, but then pushed the record button again.